After the Shooting
by noenigma
Summary: A closer look at the end of Shooting on the Green.
1. Drowning

I don't usually write sequels, and I don't like to post stories before they are complete. Unfortunately, this one took me by surprise. When I finished _Shooter on the Green_, I summarized the aftermath of the shooting in a few quick paragraphs thinking that was all that was needed to bring some closure and draw a curtain over the whole traumatic episode. But, then came _Snapshots of Pain_ which only added to the tension of the story without helping at all and making it seem somehow undone. After _Snapshots_…I needed to take a closer look at some of the things hinted at in that end summary just so I could put the episode behind me even if I couldn't for Lewis and Hathaway. Leave it to me to take twenty pages to say what could easily be said in four or five short paragraphs.

**After the Shooting**

_Drowning_

Sergeant James Hathaway sat on the ground, his knees up to his chin like a small boy. He rocked his body slightly back and forth as though he still held the child he'd rescued, but the children's worker had already come and gone and taken the little girl kicking and screaming from him. Although the afternoon heat was almost stifling, he shivered, wrapped in a blanket from one of the ambulances. He looked near tears, but his eyes were dry. It had been one thing to cry under the bridge surrounded by strangers doing the same. It was something else, something beyond him to cry under the watchful eyes of his colleagues.

DCS Innocent eyed him with concern. She thought he should be in hospital, kept quiet, protected, surrounded by thick walls, and miles away from the green. She could have ordered it so, but she didn't. Physically, the hospital and the distance sounded like just the ticket, and emotionally…he'd been through so much already, he should be able to escape into a few hours of very needed oblivion. But, she wasn't a fool. She knew sending him away before the situation had been resolved and they knew one way or another about Inspector Lewis would be as traumatic for Hathaway as taking her away from him had been for the little girl. Only she'd been able to scream and fight against it; Hathaway wouldn't even have that.

So, the chief superintendent left him there, rocking and shivering and utterly vulnerable. Though not alone. Laura Hobson was with him…well, perhaps _with_ was the wrong word. The doctor and the sergeant were only a few feet away from each other, but they both seemed very much alone even so. Innocent had been silently rooting for Hobson and Lewis to get together ever since her own attempt at matchmaking had proven to be such a dismal failure. She had wished they would just get on with it and make each other happy, but now…would it be harder to lose a man you had loved but never had? Innocent, happily married to Mr. Innocent for a good many years now, couldn't guess.

She herself also stuck close to the sergeant's side. It was difficult, her job, being everything to everyone and still managing to keep everyone together, on their toes, and under budget. She did it as well as she could and hoped for the best while expecting even better. But, her best was totally inadequate for young Hathaway. Anyone's would be. Still, she did what she could. As often as she had a moment, she stood beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder or squatted in front of him and filled him in on the fact that there were no new developments.

It was a waiting game they were playing now. A game that couldn't go on much longer without disastrous consequences. One she was not going to continue to play…there was an armored vehicle in route—and why it was taking so long to arrive, no one had yet managed to explain to her. It wasn't an ideal end move, but if the sharpshooters couldn't bring down their quarry soon, she'd send the armored vehicle in to retrieve the survivors. The SO team would have to keep the shooter pinned in the trees while the retrieval went on…and then, once the survivors were safely off the green—they'd have all the time in the world to deal with the madman who'd destroyed so many lives that afternoon.

Her plan carried with it a great number of risks and could backfire on her as horribly as her matchmaking between Ginny and Lewis had…with much more dire results.

It was a plan she didn't have time to put into motion.

He'd been passing in and out of consciousness for a good long time he thought…possibly long enough to be a great-grandad by now. Innocent's 'can't be much longer' had proven to be either a lie or a mistake. Much like his 'I'm fine' had proven to be.

He had come to realize that he was far from fine…and getting farther every minute now. Something was changing in his condition, something ominous and heavy pressing down on him making it almost impossible to breathe instead of just problematic. And there was a twisting and churning somewhere deep inside of him. He struggled to move against the weight and…wrongness pressing on him.

Gentle, restraining hands tried to ease his movements. And gripping, screaming pain made sure he stayed put. Not that he could have moved anyway…his muscles spasmed and ached from lying on the ground for so long, but they refused to obey his commands to move.

"Easy there. Easy. The docs want you to lie still. You could hurt something, you know, moving about." Hurt something. He didn't think he could possibly hurt anything worse than it already was. He was wrong though.

The twisting and churning became an unstoppable force and…

"Oh! Help me turn him! Now! Get him over—" he was spewing up blood in one prolonged and violent bout of vomiting. Unable to move, unable to clear his airway, unable to breath, and all too able to feel his body's desperate need for oxygen. Hands pulled him to his side, and somewhere far away a voice was yelling.

"Your man's going! He's…uh! Blood, litres of it…he's drowning in it!"

Drowning. That was what he was doing and, then, as suddenly as the eruption had begun, it was past. But he was still dying from lack of air. He gasped and struggled to draw in a breath but the pressure on his chest was unrelenting and heavier than the universe itself.

And this, he thought, was death. His mind sharpened and time condensed to this single moment of pain and struggle. And he thought, "Oh, Val, I'm so sorry I wasn't there with you," because the thought of her enduring this moment alone, without him, was worse than the pain of his own death.

The connection to the survivors down below had long ago been transferred to a speakerphone, and the frantic call broadcast it's despairing news to the anxious, restless group up above.

DCS Innocent was helpless in the face of it; her immediate thought was she'd been mistaken, dreadfully mistaken, to leave Hathaway there to have to hear the details of Lewis' death.

Hathaway himself jumped to his feet, throwing off the blanket as he did so. Innocent reached out a hand and grabbed his arm afraid he'd take off running to Lewis. And he would have if she hadn't held on as though both their lives depended on it.

Hobson also jumped to her feet. She moved rapidly to Innocent's side and said, "We can't wait! We've got to go now! Tell the SO teams to keep the shooter on the run…we're going down!" The medical team were nodding and murmuring their assent, and Innocent understood, regardless of what authority she wielded, there was nothing she could do to keep them from their jobs…they were there to save lives, they would not, could not stand by and listen to a man die without doing everything in their power to save him.

And she was only too glad. She couldn't have ordered them to risk their lives to go after Lewis herself, couldn't and wouldn't. But, she could and would stand out of their way to let them go voluntarily.

She gave the order immediately, "Clear the way to the wall. Now! We've people going in." She had a group of officers already charged with securing the area and making sure there would be no unwelcome surprises to endanger the medical team which should have waited for their all clear before moving. They were there primed to go as soon as word came that the shooter was down, but it was the medical team that crouched low and rushed down the rise and across the long expanse of grass to reach the wall first.

They couldn't know that even as they'd taken off, the word they'd been waiting for had finally arrived—the way was clear. The killer was down. It wouldn't have made any difference. They were needed and they went regardless of whether there was still a shooter or not. There wasn't time to do anything else. They were an experienced and well-trained team who knew what they would find on the other side of that wall—unless they were too slow, unless they were too late.

Hobson wasn't a member of their team, but she made the run with them anyway. She, too, knew what to expect. Still, she wasn't really prepared for it. The victim struggling to draw air into lungs which had collapsed under the pressure of the blood filling the pleural cavity, the volumes of semi-clotted and darkening blood, the muscles clenching in a desperate battle for life, the purplish-black skin knotted with distended veins, the wide-open, all-too-aware eyes of a man looking at his end, and over it all death's overpowering stench.

The people who had for the past hour and a half shared with Lewis the little bit of safety the wall offered, moved to the sides to allow the medics room to reach their patient. Innocent had relayed the good news to them over the mobile, but it hadn't computed. They were still trapped with a dying man while out there a madman waited to finish them all off. They couldn't believe their ordeal was over. Even when the first officers reached them, even when they began to lead them away, they didn't really believe. It was only when they were reunited with their waiting families that most of them began to accept the reality of their survival.

A second medical team arrived to care for Tony Jessop. They worked quickly, starting IV lines and hanging bags of antibiotics, saline, and plasma, consulting with the surgeons waiting at the Radcliffe, applying pressure bandages and monitors, and performing a multitude of other tasks that would hopefully give him a fighting chance of surviving transport.

The boy hadn't been fully conscious since Lewis had brought him to his father, and he did not rouse as the medical team worked quickly and efficiently over him. An ambulance eased out onto the soft grass of the green, and, then, with sirens blaring and a police escort, he was on his way to the surgeons at the Radcliffe. His father rode beside him; his mother, who'd been there just as Innocent had promised, in a patrol car right behind him.

And then, it was only Lewis and the soon-to-be verified dead lying on the grass of Melray Green.

And, if the boy's team had worked quickly and efficiently, they had nothing on the team working on Lewis. Everything young Tony had needed, the inspector needed, and much, much more before there could be any hope of transporting him anywhere but to Hobson's morgue. He had been needing it for far too long already. Most of it should have been done in a sterile operating room with a ventilator in place and easy access to a heart/lung bypass machine. The green was far from a surgical suite, but they ignored that fact and did what needed done anyway.

Hobson knelt near his head, murmuring words she didn't think Lewis could hear or take in and understand if he could, trying to stay out of the med team's way, and struggling to pull air into her own lungs in rhythm to his desperate attempts.

She was unaware that as soon as word of the shooter's death had come through, Innocent had released her death grip on Hathaway's arm, and he was there just a few feet behind her. He stood well out of the way of the desperately busy med team, swaying on his feet, and unsuccessfully trying to pray. His fear and dread were too strong to allow him to form coherent thoughts, and his growing certainty that he was watching Lewis die stronger than his faith.

And then there was a noise behind him and a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to find his father and mother. As they enveloped him in their arms, he looked into his dad's eyes and said, "I didn't go into the summerhouse, Dad. I didn't."

His mother was busy assuring herself he was unharmed and didn't even hear him. His father though nodded his head and as he pulled him closer said, "I know, Son. I know you didn't…and I'm glad. I'm proud of you." And Hathaway, who didn't even know where the words had come from or what had been so important about them that they had for that brief moment overridden every other concern in his mind, felt a relief so great that for a second he couldn't hold himself upright and sagged in his father's arms. His father tightened his hold on him and kept him from crashing to the ground.

Hathaway's mother said, "Let's get him out of here." At that, Hathaway suddenly remembered where he was and why he wasn't going anywhere.

"I…I've got to stay—my governor," he said motioning vaguely to the frantic scene going on behind him. His parents, who upon arriving had seen only their child, suddenly looked about them and understood that their son's ordeal was far from over.

"Of course," his father said when he found his voice, "but let's sit down, shall we?" In the practiced manner of a man used to being in charge, he saw his son safely settled in a way that wouldn't have made the younger Hathaway bristle at the indignity of being treated as a small child if he'd been in any state to notice.

Although Hobson assumed, hoped, and prayed that Lewis was beyond hearing, understanding, or feeling what was happening to him, he wasn't. He lay helpless and defenseless under the med team's ministering hands. He could hear their grave comments to each other as they worked and Hobson's low murmurs near his ear as though they came from a great way off. The frantic, irregular pounding of his heart and the rushing flow of his blood sounded much more immediate and clear. Other than the struggle to get an airway inserted and the placement of the chest tubes, the medical procedures didn't register on his radar. What were they to the consuming need for oxygen and the sharp, shooting pain assailing him with every breath he tried to take?

The effort to endure, to hold on, to live began to wear him down. He might have given up and let go if not for Hobson's worried voice calling to him.

"Stay with us, Robbie," she pleaded, and he did his best to not disappoint her.

"You've got to hold on—what will Hathaway do if you die?" she asked, and he remembered the ache he'd felt losing Morse and held on.

"Think of your children," she said. And he remembered the pain that had radiated from them as they'd sat vigil at Val's bedside in London. And the sounds of their grief as they'd sat by his side at her funeral, and he refused to have them go through that again for his sake.

"Don't die, Robbie," she begged, and he didn't.


	2. Floundering

_Floundering_

DCS Innocent had a lot of work to do in the aftermath of the shooting. Not all of it had to do with reports, press conferences, clean up, and public relations.

"Yes?" Dr. Hobson demanded of her when she looked up from the body she was prepping and saw Innocent.

Innocent, as a general rule avoided this particular place and those like it. Always had done as much as possible. That hadn't always been an option when she was a sergeant, or even when she made inspector even though she'd made it her general policy that autopsies and identifications were one of the things sergeants were for. As a chief superintendent, pathology came to her. Most frequently in typed or electronic reports and condensed recaps from the officer in charge of a case.

So, other than a quick and clean tour of the facilities when she'd first arrived in Oxford, and a few high-profile cases that had required she be the one to stand on the other side of the viewing window and make sympathetic noises while some illustrious family member closed their eyes, nodded their head, and murmured, "Yes…that's her," she'd never before pushed her way into Hobson's domain. Still, she hadn't expected the pathologist to fall upon her with open, welcoming arms. And it was just as well.

"I need to know your projections on how long this is going to take," the chief superintendent said.

Hobson shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Thirteen bodies weren't going to go away terribly quickly. She thought that went without saying.

"I think I might need something a little more specific than that."

"Well, obviously the specifics will vary, but the actual cause of death—it will be the same for every single one of them…no surprises. Quite straightforward, in fact."

"Exactly. So…" For all the lines she walked, Innocent was a straightforward sort herself. She wasn't one for mincing words. But, there were times, when you just had to tread softly and slowly. "…why are you here? You want to be at hospital."

"There's nothing the matter with me."

"No. Except you are personally involved in this case. There's no harm in letting someone else do the work for a change."

Hobson frowned at her…scowled more like. No wonder half of Innocent's junior officers and more than a few of the senior ones, as well, turned pale when it came time to pick up pathology reports. "That's hardly necessary," the doctor said shortly.

Innocent didn't let the scowl or the terse words intimidate her. She softened her own tone even more and said, "I think it is."

Hobson raised a bloody glove toward her face, caught herself, and instead turned away from the body. She stripped off the gloves, disposed of them, and washed her hands. Innocent waited through the necessary ritual.

When the doctor turned back to face her, she had herself firmly under control. "There is no reason to call anyone else in on this. We can handle this sort of a backlog…and it's not like there is any urgency. Your killer isn't going anywhere." She motioned toward a draped body against the far wall.

"Lau—" Innocent began but the doctor quickly cut her off.

"And…it's not like…" she made an uncertain gesture between them and didn't elaborate, "…you know." She sniffed and gave a small shrug. "They probably wouldn't even let me in. There's nothing I can do there."

"Just like there was nothing you could do when the med team went after him…but you went anyway."

"Heat of the moment. I was just in the way."

"I think we both know that's not true. You kept him alive, Laura—just as much as the doctors did." Hobson licked her lips and shook her head and tried to blink the horror of the memory of those few minutes from her mind's eye.

Innocent went on, "I can't believe I am having to stand here and tell you what what's when I have quite more than enough to be doing. I'm informed Lewis will be in surgery and then recovery for the next three to four hours. By then, I expect you to have made whatever arrangements necessary to ensure the work gets done here and be ready—I'll take you along when I meet with the surgeons…and the daughter. If your staff is not able to get on without you than call in whomever you must. " And with that she nodded to the doctor and hurried off to meet with the chief constable.


	3. Surfacing

_Surfacing_

He couldn't breathe—his throat was on fire…fire! He must have inhaled flames…and smoke, his lungs were burning as well! And he was so incredibly worn out…he couldn't even move. Just lie there and fight for air and…

"Dad! It's all right, Dad…it's all right. Just take slow, deep breaths. It's all right." That was his Lyn…Lyn! The fire—he had to get her away from the fire!

Alarms were sounding. Help on the way? No…not sirens, not the fire brigade. Beepings…beepings that he had the sense had been going on and on for a very long time. The smoke alarm?

"Mr. Lewis! We need you to breathe, Sir. Nice, deep breaths…just relax." Relax. Breathe…how could he do either with the flames burning down his throat and Lyn—"You're in hospital, Mr. Lewis. You are all right."

In hospital? How could that be? If he were in hospital, surely, they'd be seeing to him, taking care of him, stopping the fire roaring through his throat and lungs, easing the pain. He'd never felt this bad. Never. Only…the once. Lying on the grass next to a boy and a dead woman. What? When had he ever…?

"Talk to him," that voice he didn't know continued. And that made no more sense than anything else. Talk to whom? And how with his throat on fire?

"Dad. Listen. It's okay. You're okay. Just breathe—all you have to do is breathe." Ken. His son.

"Sir, breathe." Hathaway? Yes, Hathaway would be in the fire, wouldn't he? He must not have gotten him out of Zoë Kenneth's flat after all. Must have tumbled down the stairs. The poor lad must be there burning to death as well. Sorry, Sergeant.

"We're not getting through to him," the voice said. "We'll have to put him back under…it's all right, Mr. Lewis, everything's all right." Lewis didn't feel the sedatives pulling him back down into the depths, didn't hear the voice continue. "This isn't a problem. It's quite normal. We'll give him a little more time before we try again. But, you can see his numbers are improving already…we're not going to have reventilate him. His lungs are working."

"He looked so scared," Ken said quietly to no one in particular.

"More than likely, he doesn't actually remember or understand much at this point…the drugs and just the trauma in general. I'm afraid he probably is very confused and very frightened. But, it will pass. He really is going to be fine." The medical presence smiled encouragingly at them all, checked the patient's vitals and O2 stats one more time, and disappeared into the world outside the hospital room.

Those gathered around Lewis were not particularly persuaded or encouraged. They had already been trapped in this room for far too many days with surgeons and sisters and consultants of all sorts assuring them first that they should prepare themselves for the worst and then that everything was going to be fine. Today, this failed attempt of bringing him out from under the meds, had been a rough one.

Yes, it was good to see him off the machine, but…after all that time of waiting desperately to see him awake and with them…'Talk to him,' the pulmonologist had instructed, but he hadn't even heard them, had he? Hadn't even known they were there. He'd been all alone in his terror and distress, and there'd been nothing they could do to help him anymore now than there had been all the days he'd lain closer to death than life.

Laura Hobson rushed out of the room without a word. Their dad's sergeant quietly murmured, "Excuse me," as he slipped out of the room after her.

The Lewis children watched them go. Ken moved restlessly from foot to foot by his place at the window. He'd spent a good part of his life at that window. He knew each of the water spots by memory…and the fine spider-like cracks along its left side that he almost thought had lengthened in the days since his arrival. The window was a haven, a place of escape from the tension and fear and sadness and memories being in a hospital room with his father lying as though dead brought with it.

"You should go back to the flat, get some rest…before they wake him up again," he said to his sister without looking at her.

"I suppose," she agreed reluctantly. "But, I think I'll stay. Why don't you go?"

Ken pushed his hand against the windowpane, felt it's smooth coolness, its pressure against his fingers. There was a world out there beyond it. A car park to one side, a tree and a small garden, people coming and going…another world. He shook his head and turned back to look at Lyn.

"Remember when we were little…how Mum sometimes worried about—" he took a trembling breath before continuing, "about this, I guess? And Dad…and he always said—"

"It's another world," his sister finished for him softly.

He nodded his head. "Yeah…you know—I believed him. He was….well, he was Dad, wasn't he? Always smiling, always laughing. I didn't think anything could ever touch him."

His sister shrugged. "I don't think he was always that way…just the way we remember him. There had to be times…Morse, the job itself. And Mum—they fought sometimes you know."

"Yeah. About Morse and Dad always running at his beck and call…I can remember some of those. I guess because I felt just like Mum—why'd he put up with it, do you think? There was a time there when…" he shook his head and didn't continue.

"I don't think Dad saw things the same way we did…I mean sometimes he'd get disgusted with Morse and all the pressures and demands of his work—and the ones we put on him, too…but—well, I think…maybe, they were much the same to Dad."

"What do you mean?"

"Morse—us…it was like he had two families to keep happy. Always having to juggle our needs with Morse's."

"But, we were his family…Morse was just—"

"Just like James here. He's not off to rest either, you know. He was here before I was, and he'll be here after we've gone off home."

"His job," Ken said, dismissing her words.

Lyn sighed. "Not the way he sees it. Not the way Dad saw Morse…or James. They're family."

"Hmmph," Ken said, not at all certain he wanted to see his sister's point. "What then of Laura? How long's that been going on?"

"She's all right, isn't she? I think she's good for Dad. He always sounds happier when he talks about her."

"So, awhile then?"

"Oh, yeah…they see each other at work…she's been here a long time. Years. I don't know when Dad started mentioning her like they'd gone out to a pub with James or such, but…it's been awhile."

"Family then?"

Lyn gave him a questioning look. "Maybe in both meanings of the word…would it…would it be so bad?"

Ken looked back at her a moment before answering. "No. I guess not. Be better to not think of Dad on his own." His sister nodded in agreement, and they both fell back into their own thoughts before James did the little he could to calm Hobson, reported the sad state of affairs to Innocent, and grabbed a quick smoke.


	4. Staying Above the Surface

_Staying Above the Surface_

Hathaway shuffled his shoes against the fine gravel close to the back of the building. If he looked up just right and squinted he could see the silhouette of Inspector Lewis' son against the fifth window on the left three stories up. He didn't look.

He didn't belong there, in that room, intruding in their pain; but he couldn't leave them to it. The inspector would expect him to make sure his family was looked after. And even if that weren't the case, Hathaway himself couldn't leave.

Oh, he'd forced himself to check in at work a few times over the past several days, and he'd gone home for an hour here or there to shower and change and talk to his parents before they'd accepted he was fine and gone on home themselves. And he'd run one or the other of the inspector's kids to Lewis' flat or a shop when the need had arisen…grabbed up more cigarettes for himself, fed and watered Monty, checked on Hobson, that sort of thing. But.

He may not have belonged up in that hospital room, but he certainly didn't belong anywhere else either.

And maybe he did belong after all. When Lyn had first arrived, looking perhaps as distraught as anyone he'd ever seen, she'd gone first to her dad's side, and he'd stood on his other side and thought, 'I shouldn't be here…this is between her and her dad'. But after…after she'd finally been able to take in her surroundings, she'd looked up and seen him there, and she'd nodded her head as though she'd expected to see him. As though he did belong there. And when Ken had finally arrived, she'd introduced him with the words, "And this is Dad's sergeant." No name, nothing else, as though that one thing explained him and his presence in that room. And, Ken had nodded his head as though it were enough.

Innocent had taken Hathaway's report quietly. She'd been online doing the research and had known it could be a long road yet to come. Still, she had tried to sound upbeat for Hathaway's sake, and it was good news really. Lewis was off the respirator and holding his own as far as that went. Standing on the green, rather fatalistically believing she was watching the inspector die and his sergeant lose it…and all the ups and downs, hopes and despairs of Lewis' recovery to date—they shouldn't take it so badly, shouldn't be so discouraged; it was good news really.

Laura Hobson was trying to convince herself of much the same thing. From a medical standpoint, Lewis was making progress. The infection seemed to be beaten back, the lungs were healing nicely, blood count was coming back up…all the indicators were looking good. And, of course, she'd known better than to expect him to wake up with a grin and an 'Ah, hello, Pet' for his daughter but…

She'd knelt at his side and looked into his eyes as he lay as good as dying and the look in his eyes today…it had been the same. She hadn't been able to ease that fear and pain out there on the green, and she hadn't been able to ease it today. Hadn't even been able to add her own, "Just breathe, Robbie—it's okay" to everyone else's in that room. She didn't belong in there with James and the children…children. If they'd been children before these last nightmare days, they were far from it now. This had aged them all, even young Hathaway.

Someone else she wasn't doing any good. Lewis would expect her to look after his sergeant, but Hathaway was the one having to look after her. Innocent had been right. She wasn't in any state to be working…not on anything important. She made sure she stuck to the mundane busy work when she did manage to get herself enough together to show up at work. She couldn't stand being in that room…and she couldn't stand being away. Couldn't stand to see him like that and couldn't stand to not see him at all.

So. Splash more cold water on her face, blow her nose, straighten her clothes, run a hand over her hair, gird up her loins, and go beard the lion in its den.


	5. In Shallow Waters

_In Shallow Waters_

The Lewis children tended to sing to their dad in the long, quiet hours of the ICU.

It was, in fact, the first thing they had both done when they had arrived at his bedside. "Dad. It's me, Lyn (or Ken as the case had been). I'm here…" spoken in small, shaky voices that belied the grownup body perched tentatively in the chair next to their dad and clutching very carefully his left hand which had somehow or another managed to avoid major bruising and an IV needle. And then, very quietly with tears in their eyes and voices, they'd both sung the same nursery song, varying slightly as it was personalized with each of their names and gender.

It was a song, Hathaway suspected, they sang as much to comfort themselves as their unconscious father lying under the machines and surrounded by the paraphernalia of the very sick and dying. One he thought their dad had been singing to them perhaps from the very day of their births and every since…or at least until they'd outgrown being rocked to sleep or held in the night after a nightmare or during a bad bout of croup. He thought it very likely that his guv had come up with it on the spot as he held his newborn infants, and it had comforted and warmed them through the colic and the teething and countless childhood illnesses and woes.

And, then, they had sung it to him under the flashing monitors and endless beepings of the IV infusion pumps and the constant thrumming and pumping of the respirator. Walking back through the long, rabbit-warren halls of the hospital, Hathaway thought about that song and the others he'd heard them murmuring quietly through their enforced stay at the Radcliffe.

On arriving at Lewis' room, he popped his head through the door to say, "I've something I need to fetch from home—need anything while I'm out?" They'd both looked numbly up at him without really seeing or hearing him. Not because he was just a lowly sergeant or not one of them, but just because that's how people trapped in the no man's land of a hospital ICU existed. Outside of time and place. Outside of everything but the rise and fall of their loved one's chest. Because outside the beeps and lines of the heart monitor and the flashing O2 and pulse rates—there was nothing that could really reach them. The city might explode around them, but, as long as their loved one still lay in that room on that bed, it wouldn't reach them or affect them.

They were still there when he returned with his guitar case.

They'd switched places—Ken now sitting beside Lewis; Lyn staring pensively out the window—and Hobson was back leaning against the wall on the other side of Lewis' bed, but otherwise nothing had changed.

They all looked up as he entered the room…saw he wasn't a doctor or nurse or pulmonary tech or lab tech or anyone of the myriad of other hospital workers who might have necessitated them making the extreme effort of making room or listening to reports of things they didn't really understand and wouldn't remember before the conversation—if you could call it that—was over. Not because they were lazy or stupid, but just because that, too, was part of life in the ICU. All energy and focus had to go into the person lying in the center of the tiny, crowded room…there was none leftover for anything else.

Hathaway crowded himself and his guitar into the room with them, and not one of them frowned curiously at his case. He sighed as he made his way over to stand beside Lewis' daughter. She edged over slightly to make room at the window as though either of them would actually see the world outside of it—they both might as well have stared at the walls.

"I thought…" he began but had trouble putting his thoughts into words. Because he was just as trapped in that room as they were; all his energy and all his scattered thoughts directed towards the man lying behind them just like theirs. His life and theirs condensed down to this one point in time and space.

"I thought," he began again and almost gave it up right then because he wasn't sure that Lyn had even realized he was speaking to her. But, from somewhere, she dredged up enough energy to glance his way and give him the impetus to forge on. "…that perhaps…you could teach me your dad's song. Maybe it will…you know? Make it easier—to reach him, when they…try again."

She frowned at him for a moment, trying to make sense of his words, and then she nodded.

"Right," she said. "Okay."

The melody was simple enough, and it didn't take him long to be able to pick it out. It was good to have something concrete to do, something that might make at least a small difference.

And, perhaps, it did. Certainly, when the meds were decreased and he was allowed to surface that second time, Lewis was calmer and aware enough to know he was not alone. His throat still burned, and his lungs…and the rest of him—something was horribly wrong! He thought he might be dying. He looked wildly around and saw his children on either side of him and Hobson pressed against the wall and Hathaway playing his guitar? And it seemed unthinkable that he could be dying with them surrounding him.

He tried to speak, to ask them what was going on, to tell them he was dying and needed their help…but pulling enough air through his burning throat to speak hurt too badly and when he persevered anyway he found he couldn't force any words out.

"It's all right, Dad," Lyn told him. And he could vaguely remember her saying the same thing and imploring him to breathe. How long ago had that been? Someone had said then he was in hospital, and he could see that was true though he still wondered why he was being allowed to die if the means to help him were readily available.

It had been one thing to die out on the…green.

And, with that thought, he remembered it all. The terror of those last few minutes out there with his lungs screaming for air and Hobson begging him to live and Hathaway in who knew what kind of trouble and the green full of dead bodies and the boy beside him still and maybe dying too and a voice crying, "Your man's going…he's drowning!" And, he understood, no matter how badly he felt right now, he was alive.

And, as he looked from one face to the other of the people gathered around him, he understood they'd all been dying with him and still were and the only way to save them was keep living himself. And so he did.

He forced himself to breathe in and out as calmly as he could. He felt his children's hands in his own, and he relaxed his clenched fists and squeezed them gently instead.

"Oh, Dad," his daughter said and began to cry. He couldn't lift a hand to wipe away her tears, couldn't force out a 'Now, there, Pet. No need for that." Couldn't do anything but lie there and keep breathing…and that was almost beyond him.

"Welcome back, Dad," his son said with a relieved smile. "You're all right, aren't you?" And Lewis, who was as far from all right as he thought he could be and still be alive, grimaced in an effort to return his son's smile and weakly nodded his head. His children fell upon him, careful of the tubes and plasters and whatever else he had attached to him. They were laughing and crying, and he counted the effort and pain the lie had cost him as well spent.

Hathaway lowered his guitar and smiled at him. There was relief in his face…and something else. A haunted sorrow. The look of a man who had looked death and worse in the eye and couldn't forget its ugliness. Still, he managed that smile, and Lewis, already desperately needing to fall back into the void of unconsciousness, had to assume that was a good sign.

The doctors pushed their way into his existence then. He endured their probings, shiftings, questionings, and assessments. And when they had finally assured themselves that he was not only alive but _there_, they let him slip quietly and thankfully off into oblivion.


	6. On Solid Ground

_ On Solid Ground_

Countless times over the next few days, he rose to the surface, managed to stay afloat for brief snatches of time, and sank once more into sleep. For the most part, one period of wakefulness was much the same as the other. Uncomfortable, interminable, blocks of pain and weariness punctuated by one excruciating demand after another from those whose job it was to care for him regardless of how much it hurt him and glimpses of the haunted faces of the people who loved him and couldn't continue to see him hurting.

Just continuing to breathe and survive took all of his energy those first days of waking…he had nothing leftover to give in order to help them do the same. But, slowly there was a shift, an almost imperceptible turn for the better like a small burst of expelled rocket fuel changing his trajectory a minute degree so that somewhere much farther on in his journey he'd find himself alive and whole and healthy.

Someone had lowered the lights…Lewis couldn't guess if that meant it was nighttime or if it merely meant there was now supposed to be a long enough break in the endless rounds of meds, turnings, procedures, blood work, and such so that there might be time enough for someone to snatch a few moments of uninterrupted sleep. He had even less of an idea what day or even what month it was. Time was frozen and stagnant in the hospital. Its passage not the dawning of a new day but just the continuation of a very long one stretching on towards infinity.

There were coming from somewhere in the room the soft sounds of someone sleeping…his son or his sergeant at a guess. He was turned to the wrong side to tell for sure. Lyn was dozing rather precariously on the chair in front of him. In the dim light, he could see the weariness and worry etched into her features even in sleep. She was too young to be in this room, burdened under such a great weight. She should be back in Manchester, living her own life with Tim—where was Tim anyway? Back at work most like; someone had to be paying the bills.

She was her mother's daughter. Sometimes he'd see her and a picture of Val would flash through his mind's eye with the same smile and the same laughing eyes. But, she was very much his in temperament and outlook. If he could just get over the hump and let her know he was going to be okay, he could wipe the worry from her face. He could free her from the endless days in this room.

"The glass is always half-full to you, isn't it, Lewis?" Morse had asked him once, and, back then, before he'd lost Val, it had been. It still could be for Lyn. Because he was going to be okay. He'd finally begun to believe the doctors and sisters about that. Time to start making the others believe it as well.

A spasm stiffened his back and forced out a groan that led to a paroxysm of coughing, and so much for Lyn's bit of rest. "Sorry," he told her in the harsh, breathless approximation of a voice he could with enough effort now force out of his tormented throat.

She spooned ice chips into his dry mouth and wiped his face and whispered, "It's all right, Dad. How are you doing?"

"Good," he said. She shook her head in disbelief and leaned over to kiss him gently on his cheek. "No," he said. "I am. Maybe time for you to go on home."

She sat back down and cupped her face in her hands, peering at him like the little girl she'd always be to him. "Well, that's the first thing you've said that makes me think you really might be getting better," she said with an actual smile on her face. "Keep it up, and you may convince me yet…but, not today."

He frowned at her, but she was not dissuaded. "Don't worry about it, Dad. I'll still have my job when I get home, Tim will still be there…I'll be fine—just you get better. That's all I need."

"Doing me best," he said and drifted off before he could see the tears that sprang to her eyes at the obvious truth in those words.

Days, weeks, minutes, hours—he couldn't guess which—later he woke to a full room. They were all there: Ken with his face to the window and his back to the room, Hathaway frowning at his mobile and punching away at the keys, Lyn staring blankly at the muted television screen in the corner of the room, and Hobson…looking worse than he felt.

"Are you all right?" he mouthed at her.

"No. I'm not all right," she answered back. Her harsh and angry voice broke the silence and startled the others. He weakly motioned her over to his side. After a moment's hesitation, she sighed and came over. He twitched his hand and she took it.

He cocked his head towards the chair and said, "Sit down." She huffed a bit as though he was asking more than he had the right to, but she was the one who'd asked him to hold on. She could at least hold his hand and sit beside him and show a little appreciation that he'd done what she'd asked. She looked at the IV bag slowly dripping into the tubing, the monitors somewhere towards the head of his bed, his hand, anywhere but his face.

"Laura," he said, and then she was crying quietly against his shoulder. He carefully moved a hand to smooth her hair and said softly, "It's all right, luv. It's all right."

"Oh, Robbie…I love you," she whispered into his shoulder, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to have heard that or not. He'd known though, hadn't he? She'd once told him that people didn't know what you felt if you didn't tell them, but…he'd known. Long before that day on the green…he couldn't think now why he'd known and done nothing about it. Why he'd been content to let her love lie between them and had not felt the need to grab it or act upon it. Because, surely, he'd—Val, he supposed.

Everything in one way or another had come down to Val ever since he'd first met her at that rock concert so many years before. He would have moved mountains for her, flown to the moon, walked on water…and walled off the part of himself that needed someone else now that she was gone. Afraid that to do otherwise would change what they'd had. It couldn't. Those years with Val and all they'd shared through them…they were safe and untouchable.

His…love for Laura couldn't change that. It was something else altogether.

"Well, that's all right, then, isn't it?" he said and gently kissed the top of her head.

It might actually have been night when he awoke again. A thin, white line of light outlined the closed door, the heavy window drapes were drawn, and only the colored lights of the machines and displays around his bed eerily illuminated the room.

It was Ken in the chair this time. With the pain meds still making him fuzzy, Lewis could easily have believed he was catching a glimpse of his younger self back in the day. In looks only, mind. Lyn was the child he understood; Ken the one he'd never quite fathomed. The changeling son he'd never understood though not from lack of trying.

Lewis was thankful to lie there in the quiet of that maybe-night and watch his son sleep. It had been a long time since he'd had the opportunity. He thought with regret that soon, far too soon, the lad would be off again. Sadly, Ken's time home would be the only thing that passed quickly in these suspended days after the shooting.

"I memorized him!" Lyn had told him when he'd taken the little bundle that was her brand-new baby brother from her tiny arms way back when. Lewis blinked tears from his eyes and wished he could do the same.

His son drew in a deep breath, wiggled in the chair, and blinked sleep from his eyes in the same way his father had his tears. "Hey," he said quietly when he realized Lewis was awake. "How you doing?"

Lewis swallowed hard and worked out, "Okay." Of course, that made him cough and spasm and…the whole, tiresome, old song. Ken stood beside him and rubbed his back until it was past. "Sorry," Lewis told him, and his son didn't want to hear it any more than his sister had earlier.

"No worries, Dad," he said. "Think you can drink a bit?" Lewis allowed Ken to raise the head of the bed and help him take small, painful sips of lukewarm water. The ice chips went down better, but Lewis figured they were melted and didn't want to ask for fear Ken would wander off to fetch more and…he wanted every moment he could get with the lad.

"It's getting better, isn't it, Dad?" his son asked him sounding for all the world like the little boy who had dogged Lewis' footsteps asking question after question all those years ago.

"Oh, aye."

"Good," Ken said, and Lewis nodded his agreement.

"Thanks. For coming," Lewis said. It was the wrong thing to say he thought when Ken nodded and walked over to the window. He pulled back the drapes and looked out into the night. Lewis pursed his lips and waited for his son to tell him he would be leaving.

There had been a time when Ken had been quite young that they'd been on a visit to his grandparents in Newcastle. The flat had been crammed with a huge assortment of laughing and chattering Lewis siblings and grandchildren, aunts and uncles, cousins, and a few odd souls who as far as Ken had been able to tell had seen all the coming and going and just wandered in off the streets. It was always that way when they visited, and Ken had only lately grown to realize the flat wasn't normally quite so full to bursting. The family gathering was for their visit. Well, for his dad actually. The wandering son come home.

And his granddad's voice had risen above all the hubbub and asked, "Time you was coming home where you belong, don't you think, Laddie?" Ken had understood instinctively that Granda had been talking to his dad. He'd been struck with the very unhappy and unwelcome realization that this was where his father belonged. Laughing and nattering on with roomfuls of people who sounded much like him. Not serious and quiet in the hustling streets of Oxford or the beautiful cultured gardens or even playing cricket in their own back garden. And Ken, with his familiar school and chums back in Oxford, hadn't liked that thought at all.

He hadn't stayed to hear his dad's reply. Instead, he'd run frightened and dismayed to find his mum. She'd hugged him and tried to assure him his dad belonged in Oxford with them and with his Morse and his job. But Ken had felt sick and sad and very much at loose ends until he'd squeezed in between all the relatives to have his dad pull him onto his lap. Secure in his father's embrace, he had felt finally safe and…home. He'd looked around the sea of faces, and he'd known he was where he belonged.

But, then he'd grown up a bit, hadn't he? And there'd been a time when he'd spent a good deal of time and energy trying to make his dad into someone he wasn't while trying to figure just who he was himself and where he really did belong. Natural part of growing up they said. Maybe, maybe not, but either way, it had been hard on his dad. And that had been hard on him. And, he hadn't quite gotten there when his mum had died and there'd been his own pain and grief to deal with, and Lyn's, and Gran's, and his dad's…and somewhere along the way, he'd gotten a bit lost.

He turned from the window and made his way back to his place at his dad's side. "Dad, you ever…feel like you don't belong?"

"Some days, some places…but, mind, there aren't all that many of those sorts of places I've ever wanted to belong."

Ken, whose mind had been working in a totally different direction, frowned at his father's words. Oxford was Oxford, and though he probably should have, he'd never given a thought to the sneers and slurs his father faced in the course of his duties butting heads with dons and fellows and men who thought a title and an old, drafty estate made them somehow better than an ordinary, everyday copper from Newcastle.

"You…you weren't ever ashamed though…of who you are?"

"Nope," his dad said. "But…I—well, I was sometimes afraid you might be."

"I'm not Dad. I've never been."

"Well, that's all right, then, isn't it?" his dad asked as staff came in to turn him and fuss with the IV and various other tubes.

Once they were gone, Ken knew he was almost out of time. His dad would soon drift away from him, pulled down by the pain meds, and James would be back bringing Lyn before he woke again. Yet, he wanted to hold on to this time with his dad, and he still had things to say.

"Dad, I've a girl back home."

"Thought you might."

"Yeah. Well, I've asked her to come…see if she thinks she could be happy here."

"Oh?"

"I want to come home, Dad. This is where I belong." Lewis turned his face away so that his son couldn't see how very much those words meant to him. "Dad? I've let my job go. I think I can find something here without too much trouble."

"And what if this girl doesn't want to come?"

"Well…I'm not sure. But, if she doesn't…and, uh…well, if I go back—I won't stay away so long. And I'll keep working on her."

"Could be…you'll need a place. Could be the flat—I might…I'm thinking—I might marry Laura, like. If she'd have me. She has a house…we wouldn't have need of the flat. What do you think?"

"I think I love you, Dad…and I think she loves you too. And don't let the lease go before I know what's what. But, the cat—he goes with you."

"Fair enough."

As his dad started to drift away, Ken said, "Don't leave me yet, Dad…there's something else I want—well, I need to say. I should have said it a long time ago. That day I made the teacher cry? And you had to come to the school? I'm sorry…for disappointing you…and for what I said. I didn't mean it—I was just…jealous I guess."

"Jealous?"

"Of Morse…" he bit his lip and ducked his head and was glad the room was so dim that his father couldn't see just how embarrassed the admission made him feel.

"You'd no need to be," Lewis told him gently.

"I know. And I'm sorry."

His dad smiled forgivingly at him and said, "No worries, Lad." Ken smiled back as he watched sleep blur the lines of pain and exhaustion on his dad's face.

And that left only Hathaway.


	7. High Ground

_High Ground_

"Together we make a not-bad detective," Lewis had told his sergeant when Hathaway had been thinking of handing in his papers. Hobson—Laura—had wanted him to be more direct, to come out and boldly tell the lad he wanted him to stay and why. But, fortunately for Lewis, Hathaway had let him take the easy way out. He swallowed a sigh to avoid setting off the fire-in-the-throat, cough-till-you-think-you-might-just-die reaction and knew it wasn't going to be so easy this time.

"Dad? You all right?"

"Fine, Pet…your brother off to doss down a bit then?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind? Give me a minute with the sergeant?"

"Sure, Dad…I'll nip down for a bite and maybe take a walk to clear the cobwebs." He nodded his thanks, and she waved a good-by from the door.

"Something wrong, Sir?" Hathaway said from the corner where he'd been doing who knew what on that mobile of his.

"Don't suppose. Just thought it was time we had a natter."

Hathaway frowned at him suspiciously but came over to take his turn in the chair without Lewis having to ask. Probably because if Hathaway hoped to hear him, it would have to be from near by. The voice was improving, but it had a long way to go before he'd be able to shout it out with Hathaway in the streets like he'd done a time or two before.

Lewis didn't see any need of scaring Miss Muffet away so he went the long way around. "Me lad's thinking of coming home."

"That's good, Sir."

"And, me…I'm thinking of…marrying Dr. Hobson—what do you think?"

"I think it's well past time."

"Clear enough." There was a silence stretching out from there for a time, and then, "Tell us about that day, James."

Hathaway sighed, frowned, and shook his head. "Maybe later, Sir."

"Now."

"I'd rather not."

"And I'd rather not hear it, but it isn't going away. The sooner you look it in the eye and stare it down the sooner it will be behind you. So let's have it."

Hathaway told his story succinctly and without emotion—like a bloody case report. And Lewis, who'd been there, too, and knew there'd been enough fear, horror, and sorrow on that green to last them both for the whole of their lives even if they lived to be a hundred, didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that the lad had locked away the visceral truth of that day.

He waited the lad out for a moment after his report had drawn to a close. He had hoped Hathaway might give something away to fill the quiet, but the sergeant wasn't so bad in the interview room himself. Lewis had gotten all he was getting.

"So. I've a bloody hero for a sergeant," he said in the end.

Hathaway snorted and said, "Not hardly." He shook his head in denial of what his actions had loudly and dramatically proclaimed. And then, in almost a whisper, with his head down so he didn't have to look Lewis in the eye, he added, "I've never been as frightened in my life."

"No. Me either," Lewis assured him, because there was no shame in the admission. It reminded him of Ken's confession. His son had been just as ashamed to admit he'd felt jealous of his father's time, though Lewis reckoned that was as natural as Hathaway's fear on the green.

He lifted a hand and scratched the back of his head. The movement caused him to wince, but still it felt good to be able to move a bit on his own. Hathaway, who was as bad as the kids about watching his every move for signs of something to worry about, opened his mouth for the inevitable, "Are you okay? Do you need something? Should I ring for the sister or…straighten your pillows or—whatever the flavour of the day was."

He'd been there with Morse that last hospital stay, and he'd been the one worrying about the pillows all skewwhiff. Morse had told him in no uncertain terms, "Lewis, don't fuss," and he'd never forgotten the helplessness he'd felt in not even being able to do that small thing for the chief inspector.

Instead of curtly telling Hathaway, "Don't fuss, Sergeant," he forestalled him by saying, "He said he was jealous, me lad, of Morse."

Hathaway raised his eyebrows and gave it a think. Then he said, "Well, I can understand that. I've been a bit jealous of him myself."

"Him. My son?"

"No," Hathaway said, perhaps a little too quickly and a little too loudly. "Of Morse."

"Ah…well, there's no need for you to be, Sergeant-not of Morse nor of Ken as far as that goes." And Lewis reckoned since he'd let Hathaway get away with telling his story as though it had happened way back in antiquity to someone long dead and forgotten, the sergeant could let him get away with only coming that close to telling him how much he valued his friendship.

Hathaway searched his face, and he wasn't looking to see if it was time for another dose of pain meds. Lewis met his eyes and didn't look away, because, even if he found it hard to say the words, there was no shame in his admission either. Whatever Hathaway read into his words and look, he nodded his head and said, "Thank you, Sir."

Lewis sniffed and changed the subject. "So…what lucky inspector has you shining his shoes today?"

"No one, Sir."

"No one?"

"Innocent is keeping me busy…lots of IT work backed up with the likes of you not wanting to get your hands dirty touching a keyboard."

Lewis frowned at him. "Don't be waiting around on me…I'll not be back anytime soon. Get Innocent to assign you another inspector. You're too good to sit on the bench. You won't get anywhere that way."

At that moment, staff came in to have their way with him. Hathaway rose to leave him to their mercy. Before walking out the door, he placed a hand on Lewis' shoulder, bent over to let him see his face, and said with a smirk, "Don't worry, Sir. I'm not going far."

_Author's Note:_ I'm afraid I messed with the timeline a bit in these. I'd like to think and believe that Lewis saying, "What happened here—you're not to blame for any of it. Not then, not now," would have wiped away the trauma Hathaway is still hiding deep within his soul during these events or at least kept it from blindsiding him in the emotional strain of the shooting. So the events recorded in these stories should have occurred before Hobson ever had need to tell Lewis her bit about people not knowing how you feel if you don't tell them…and also before Monty took to sharing Lewis' tea. But, of course, these three events all happened in the _Dead of Winter_.


End file.
